Meta-point: backward compatibility

[Cale Gibbard]

2008/4/24 Chris Smith <cdsmith at twu.net>:
>  3. Don't get me wrong; I'm definitely not arguing for this ($)
>  associativity change, for example, and my objection is the backward
>  compatibility.  But ultimately, it's more like a combination of
>  incompatibility and the lack of a really compelling story on why it
>  should be one way or the other.  I have a hard time calling this a "fix";
>  it's more like a change of personal taste.  If I saw this as really
>  broken, then I'd say we need to talk about how to fix it.

How about the argument that the right associative ($), in conjuction
with (.) is less expressive than that left associative one in
conjunction with (.)? That is, more parentheses can be avoided.
Everything you can do with chained right associative ($), you can do
with (.) and a single ($), whereas there are things you can express
with chained left-associative ($) which you need parentheses to
express without it.

 - Cale